WHERE, WHY, HOW, WHY, WHO!

Wednesday, April 12, 2017

a weekend with the Calgarian

So, a couple of weeks ago we had another visit from the Great White North that we miss so much – a friend from Calgary we met in Toronto! Some highlights of things we shared during his visit?

Vegan tacos!

Yes, in the Colonia Roma Norte there´s a place called La Pitahaya Vegana, and they have a number of delicious vegan tacos! Sure, they look very colourful, but the tortillas, the fillings and the salsas are amazing! Except maybe some ricotta made from coconut, which tasted good by itself, but sort of didn't quite mesh well with the cheese concept? Whatever, you should try this place.

Art at Museo Jumex

The habib really wanted to see this exhibition on a Mexican conceptual artist, arguably one of the first and most influential Mexican artist on this genre. The habib had a field day there, while the rest of us (me, our Calgarian, my sis and her family) tried to follow and understand the exhibit the best we could. Lots of interesting video and text, and definitely not the easily digestible kind, but still enjoyable and intriguing.

Café de chinos!

Mexico City has a number of places known as cafés de chinos (Chinese people's cafés). They were originally set up by Chinese, decades ago, but the food served there was mostly basic and definitely Mexican. They were, after all, just businesses where you could drink coffee and eat cheap. They were most definitely not Chinese food restaurants.

There are quite a few left around, but one of the more famous and old ones is Café La Pagoda, in the historic centre of Mexico City. Just so you have an idea of what you can get there, look at my dinner – grilled nopal, on a bed of beans, with traditional salsa, tortillas, and sauteed chile and onion.

By the end we were all so full we couldn't order any of the beautiful sweet bread you could see by the window!

Mezcal for whatever!

Of course, we had to take our bud to one of our favourite places – El Bósforo, a mezcal bar or mezcalería. Business was a bit slow, so we could all sit at the bar, and the barmaid had a fantastic time explaining to our friend how to drink and enjoy mezcal. Big tip before anything else – you sip this, you do not slam it! LOL.

We didn't get to do much more with him, what with work and stuff (he had to do plenty of touristing on his own). But, like practically everybody who's visited our monstrous city, he's in love with it, so we'll probably see him back. Because you can't escape the lure of this capital, eh?